702 MR. G. H. GURNEY ON NATURAL HISTORY 
on, and one loses the shapes of the palm-trees on the river 
bank, and the stars suddenly appear with the marvellous 
brilliance which no one who has never been in the tropics 
can understand, and the African night with all its mystery 
is upon us, and we watch the dancing fireflies for a time before 
turning into our tents and beds. We only spent one night 
at this first camp, as we were anxious to get further afield as 
quickly as possible, and long before daybreak the following 
morning we were astir and after a toilet of the simplest 
description and breakfast outside our tents by the light of a 
candle, the tents were struck and in a very short time each 
man had his load made up and was ready to start. 
Our cavalcade and mode of marching from one camp to 
another was each day much the same ; if we came to a good 
place for game or collecting we would stop there three or four 
days and then move on perhaps twenty miles further, and so 
in this way we got over a great deal of ground and had a great 
variety of camps ; our “ saffari ” when we moved camp was 
rather picturesque ; L. and I always rode some way in front, 
each keenly on the lookout for game ; though as a rule we made 
a practice of not doing very much shooting when marching 
from one camp to another, as it always meant a long delay ; 
we were each closely followed by our gun-bearers, carrying 
his master’s rifles and gun, then came our other servants with 
all the usual impedimenta of a Natural History expedition, 
butterfly nets, spare guns, collecting apparatus, etc., while 
behind them followed in a long straggling line our fifty black 
porters, each carrying a 6o-lb. load of baggage on his head, 
for Government will not allow any man to carry more than 
this, while the vanguard of the procession was formed by 
twenty donkeys also well loaded with tents, luggage and 
food. 
Our camp that night was near a small hill called Dony-o- 
sambuk, very prettily situated under a grove of big Mimosa 
trees, and as we were now beginning to get into a good game 
district we decided to stop there for three days ; this suited 
me well and I was able to shoot a good many interesting 
birds, and also catch a lot of the magnificent big Papilio 
